Blazingcatfur

Even before US and Israeli missiles began raining down, those sensing the winds of change were forecasting a Berlin Wall moment for Iran.

Mass nationwide demonstrations in January – although savagely repressed, causing the deaths of an estimated tens of thousands – were seen as portents of a reckoning for the country’s ruling theocrats, just as the popular breaching of Berlin’s fearful symbol of Europe’s cold war division spelled the downfall of East Germany’s communist regime in 1989.

Now the sudden death of Iran’s most powerful figure, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – killed, with his wife, in an Israeli missile strike on his supposedly secure compound in Tehran last Saturday – has further fuelled the belief that profound transformation is at hand.

President Trump is considering sending troops to secure Iran’s enriched uranium after reports of US-Israeli strikes on one of the main sites that he said was obliterated last year.

Missile attacks caused “severe damage” to an irradiation sterilisation facility in Isfahan on Saturday, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported. The Iranian regime has not allowed any inspection at Isfahan, where most of the uranium was believed to be stored, nor at Fordow and Natanz, the main places for enrichment.

A synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège was damaged in an explosion in the early hours of Monday, police have said.

The blast happened at around 04:00 local time (03:00 GMT) in front of the synagogue and damaged windows across the street but caused no injuries, according to officers.

Willy Demeyer, the city’s mayor, called the incident “an antisemitic act”, while Prime Minister Bart De Wever said later on social media: “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community.”

Related – Police release images of Oslo US embassy explosion suspect

h/t Patti Jo

As hundreds of thousands of tourists in the Middle East wait anxiously for news of scant repatriation flights, a smaller group of ultra-wealthy people have sought a more exclusive way out: private jets.

In four days last week SHY Aviation fielded some 200 requests for 700 people in the Middle East to charter its planes, which carry up to 12 passengers. Overall, the company estimates, some 30,000 people have tried to evacuate the area by private jets hired through SHY or its rivals.